Some Burning Questions

While I do not dispute the fact that there is inequitable distribution of wealth / resources. But isn`t that universal. Why begrudge those in the armed forces for having facilities. Man would like to have a better quality of living and it is up to him to choose the direction that he wishes to pursue.

The university professor or the surgeon in a government hospital were not forced to join civilian occupation and if they had so desired to accumulate wealth had the military services open to them.

The point being yes the priorities of the government seems lopsided but thats where democracy begins. Rather than appeal to the good senses of the military what are we doing for the political process. Are we guiding the people that we have elected to re-priortize our objectives. To assign more resources to things like education and health in the private sector.

But one thing is for sure, we should not expect that people with skills would work for nothing for the government. The government (by the people) should mentally be prepared to pay compensation to attract the best of the lot who would like to improve the governance and not those that expect to recover their opportunity costs by way of corruption.

And this would only be possible if we vote for the mandates that the politicians disclose before elections and reelect only those persons that have delivered on their promise. this is something that is not going to happen overnight. For we should be aware ourselves the benchmarks that the government can deliver on and those that they cannot.

Expecting that the cost of electricity can magically be brought down when WAPDA and KESC is hemorraging cash like crazy just means that the government will have less to spend somewhere else. Its just a matter of priorities. Can the general public understand that.

Ms. Yasmeen,
You are right in comparing our brave generals to Alexander the Great. In fact our generals are even greater, for the following reasons:
1. Alexander could move around only on horses, that backward man. Our generals have tanks and aeroplanes.
2. Alexander took years to travel from his barren little mountain in Greece to what we now know as our beloved Pakistan. Our generals on the other hand go in a few hours from Pakistan to not just Greece but all over Europe and even to the US.
3. Alexander got bitten by a mosquito and died. Our generals get bitten by beautiful girlfriends.
4. Alexander had no bank balance. In fact he didnt even know what a bank was. ha! ha! Our generals are experts in not just banks but in international finance and have bank balances all around the globe, in little offshore islands and in the financial capitals of the world.
5. Alexander was already the son of a king when he was born. Our generals are self-made men who had to make their wealth on their own.
6. Alexander was gay. Our generals are straight (at least some of the time).

Re: Nighat Yasmeen

``My firm belief is that failing to raise voice against injustices is akin to complicity...``

Yes, we are all gulity; welcome to the execution!

Ciao

Writer is 100% right. It is a sad story. It is a vicious circle. Where to begin? I feel we need to normalize our relations with India without compromising on our differences. Reduce our defence expenditure and put that money into the social sectors of our economy - education, health, creation of jobs. And the politicians, showing tolerance towards each other, work towards a stable, progressive, liberal and a democratic state. There is no other way out.

Thank you mrs. Nighat Yasmeen.
You have written honestly and 95 % residents feel exactly feel as you feel.
Most of us feel General Supremo is fraud and emperior is without clothes and thanks for telling him that.
I am very depressed. I feel its not any bodies fault. Recently I am feeling we are hopeless 4th word bunch od Pak-india and we are 6th grade people and we get what we deserved. We are shameless whiners. Why blame general, we celebrated his taking over. Why blame breaking up of country on Army, our all west pk elected members supported war on innocent people. ( Only one leader of NWFP supported rights of Bengalis). We have become classical stupid forth rate people. Our prople expak support Dictector, we agree disqualification of nongraduates as non election members. We believe when Supremo said no corrouption will be allowed. It shows even expak all educated are stupid or fraud.
Let us not blame army, donot blame Mullahs, do not blame Bhuttos or our all supreme leaders, do not blame feudalism blame average pakistani who is stupid and corroupt. I am tired of blame game, just understand we 4th grade people will live in 6th grade situation for all times, no chance of improving, we will be always DEVELOPING COUNTRY.This can bring calmness and peaceful happiness as happiness is state of mind.

Brilliant Ms. Yasmeen! Bravo! Extremely well written, learned, and hadr-hitting! Straight from the heart--as well as being 100% true! I wish I had written it myself..:-)

Dil se jo baat nikalti hai, asar rakhti hai
Par nahin, taaqat e parwaaz magar rakhti hai!

-Iqbal :-)

****

As for Alexander of Macedon--he was--by the standards of his time--very pluralistic and civilised; vide his order to marry into the locals he conquered--one of his wives Roxanna (Ruqsana?) was from Afghanistan--and another the daughter of Darius--for himself AND his soldiers--although his soldiers considered all non-Greeks as barbarians (on Aristotle`s teachings). Alexander is one of my historical heroes...

Nighat Yasmeen: I read part one of this article too. I humbly suggest to you to keep writing irrespective of the subject matter. You do have the ability to compose thoughts very well and catch reader`s attention.

However, a letter to Musharraf must not start with butressing him with three big lies. You have to be truthful and honest right from the start since rest of the article is an honest complain. The three big lies,
[General Pervez Musharraf,
Chief of Army Staff,
Islamic Republic of Pakistan]
do not go well with your subject matter, up-front and honestly.
He is not a serving General according to the most sacred law of the land. He would have been actually demoted following dismissal, if not for burglarizing Islamabad and democracy. similarly, he was lawfully dismissed from the post of COAS and I guess you meant President of the Islamic Republic in the last line. I do not have to go through the details of his assuming the presidency to this day. Instead of three lines, it should have been: Mr. Pervez Musharraf. That is it.
Since you know it falling on deaf ears, make the point as powerful as possible without playing the game on his turf.

Once again, please keep writing here, SATribune and wherever you like to publish.
Regards,
Sameer

madani #5 ez for you to say that things will never improve and happiness is a state of mind. After all, things are OK Dokey for people like you who have nice jobs (with ex-military man as boss, as I recall). And with poor people everywhere, you can easily hire them at dirt cheap rates (or just give them a servant quarter) and they will be there to cook your meals, polish your shoes, get you water, carry children`s bags to school, weed the garden, drive your car. Even the millions you dont hire will make you feel like a king as they humbly approach you begging for money, or for the honor of carrying your bags, and so forth.
Down with the corrupt pakistani upper class!!

“In contrast, your daughter’s birthrights include O-Level at sumptuous Army Public Schools on highly subsidized rates.”
I have studied in 5 different Army Public Schools in Pakistan and not even a single one of them had O-Levels. So you are very wrong there maam.


“90% civilian children don’t have access to decent playgrounds, but for your kids the state provides thoroughbred stallions and instructors for riding. A pointer: 140 million ‘ordinary’ Pakistanis have fewer swimming pools available to them than the sports centres exclusively on the disposal of officers of the armed forces. [I can substantiate this claim with exact figures]”
The reason being that in order to stay physically fit you have to exercise, that’s the reason for having the swimming pools. You can’t go on exercises to learn swimming (it costs the Army quite abit of money to send units to exercises) so swimming pools are made in cantts so that the jawans can learn swimming. They are also open to the children of the army officers and civilians.(but the civilians are charged offcourse)

“Billions of rupees from the national exchequer were shamelessly frittered away on that lousy referendum, just for appeasing your unconstitutional ambitions.”
Yes you are 100% correct. Holding the referendum was a stupid idea.


“My son doesn’t get as little as a few tablets of Paracetamol after having queued for hours and endured endless humiliation at public hospitals. For your son there are helicopter ambulances, luxurious VVIP wards at well-equipped military hospitals [strictly out of bound for common man] -- free of cost.”
Helicopter ambulances!! Never heard of those before. Hundreds of jawans are injured each day for the defence of this country so the free treatment is a necessity. What do you suggest? The jawan should pay for the treatment of taking the bullet, that is preposterous.
As far as having the VVIP treatment is concerned than I think after 30 years of service you do deserve something.


(iii)” Why a senior surgeon serving in a government hospital doesn’t get a fraction of monetary rewards as compared to what a GOC grabs without doing anything productive at all?”
I think the GOC makes <30 grands per month and he is not allowed to work anywhere else while he is in the service. Do you have any clue how much our SENIOR SURGEONS make at their private clinics. 500 ruppees for one patient, you do the math.
“Sir, I challenge you to refute any one of my assertions. I will never ever lift my pen again, if proved wrong.”
No emotional blackmailing please. You might not wanna lift the pen again but please keep using the keyboard. You made some good points but most of the stuff seems to be the result of anger against the whole institution rather than one person(Pervez Musharaf)

Last but not the least, let us go back in the Nawaz era, we will see that Mr. Musharaf became Chief of the Army Staff by unfair means, not by merit. There were senior(read more capable) officers than him but Mr. Sharif choose him because he was Muhajir and politically weak.

Regars,
Farhan

Some clarifications for Mr Virtue (Farhan #10):-

1) I have been unable to find any objection in the article regarding the treatment of jawans taking the bullets. Rather, on the contrary she wrote:

You know, the most repulsive of all is that those, who in reality do face the enemy bullets i.e., jawans, NCOs and JCOs are not much better off either. No less than 50000 of them are orderlies – euphemism for slave –polishing shoes, making beds of the officers.

And let me add (my own eye-witness account) that a Begum of a General with aching backbone has higher priority than that of a jawan from the LOC with bullet in his chest.

2)What does a professor or for that matter take any civilian post of your own choice deserve after 30 years of service? Please, enlighten us.

Dont you think that you are not too impartial to comment on this article?

Take care.

Credibility, Dictatorship and Isolation
By Hussain Askari

Like most dictators, General Musharraf has been steadily cutting the branch on which he is perched.

On October 12, 1999, there were many who believed that Pakistan`s fortunes had turned for the better with a straight-talking general ousting a badly discredited elected government through a military coup. Three years down the road, the number of such optimists seems to have dwindled substantially. In fact, as the year draws to a close, even his most ardent supporters are beginning to concede that in the ultimate analysis, General Musharraf`s tenure may prove to be more detrimental for the nation and its institutions than that of any of his predecessors.

Even though his grip on government remains as strong as ever despite the elections, the moral high ground that he claimed on October 12, 1999, seems to have been washed away completely. And not without reason. The road that he has travelled from being a self-proclaimed savior to an outright adventurist, is pock-marked with many distinct measures that were taken only to preserve him in power, irrespective of their cost to the nation. For many, the speed at which he has frittered away his goodwill is matched only by that of the PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.

Monthly Herald
Karachi
January, 2003

Just to have an idea of the intellectual level of many of our star officers
Interview of Lt Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi to BBC world is available at:
http://www.satribune.com/archives/nov4_10_02/opinion_javedashraf.htm
I strongly recommend you people to listen to him. You will be amused. You people will not believe your ears, I promise.

And if still not convinced:

Three stars
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
Dawn
Sunday, 12 January 2003

Javed Nasir, a retired lt-general of the Pakistan army, in October 2002 filed a complaint under Section 6(a)(b)(c), 8 & 11 of the Anti-Terrorist Act, 1997, before the Anti-Terrorism Court at Lahore.

`The complainant` proclaims himself to be one ``who symbolizes Tableeghi Jamaat`s most prominent member with international fame and reputation of the most scrupulously honest individual,`` and claims that in 1992 he ``became an instant international figure.`` The `Respondents/Accused` are: ``Mir Shakilur Rahman, editor-in-chief of the Jang Group of News, Lahore,`` and three others of his Lahore office.....

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/cowas/cowas.htm

wanna more ??
Just drop a line ... i will post hundreds of more stories

Ref nazarhayatkhan #5

[Where to begin? I feel we need to normalize our relations with India without compromising on our differences.]

Were any differences ever compromised between the years 1947 and 1971? But, despite the stupidity of the 1965 war (fomented by that self-serving megalomaniac Bhutto) there was generally peace between the countries during that time.

Despite the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, was there any major problem between India and Pakistan between 1972 and 1989? No.

The idea that you can wage war in another country through non-traditional fighters of a third country as practiced in Afghanistan was exported to Kashmir. You see the results now. Kashmir is in shambles, tens of thousands of Kashmiris are dead, the Line of Control is hot, and Pakistan is bleeding from the thousand cuts it is inflicting on India.

Has a single Indian leader offered any compromise other than LOC = International Border?

So, what is Pakistan fighting for? What do they hope to achieve with the spending on its armed forces?

The Pakistan Army needs an enemy to stay in business. The Pakistani people do not.

Thus every Pakistani (bleeding-heart, knee-jerk liberals that they are) extends the warmest hospitality to visitors from India and Indians reciprocate the gesture. The Pak Army, on the other hand, shoots shells across the LOC.

What a contrast!

As someone who has seen the insides of the Pakistan military, I would say this letter is almost correct. Some emotionalism, but a lot of correct information. However it does miss out on a few important points.

There are far too many Generals in the Pakistan military. This is a fact. And according to some (ill-informed) individuals, every military officer is a General and extremely well looked after, and making a lot of dough. Yet, none of these critics himself/herself joins the military. If life is so great there, then why not join. It is open to everyone. People need to keep in mind that over 99% of the military, not counting the Generals, is worse off than their civilian counterparts in similar jobs.

Secondly, the Pakistan military is having trouble recruiting officers. The standards of applicants has gone down quite a bit - specially for the Army. The most competent Pakistani students are not joining the military. Very few Generals send their own kids into the military (none of Musharraf`s own kids are in the military). So if the military is all milk and honey, why would the above happen? People should be dying to join it.

A third phenomenon is even more interesting. Nearly any military officer who has a chance to leave the military does so in a heartbeat. To the point the military even stopped and restricted officers` courses in civilian universities and overseas universities - since so many of them end up leaving. There is now a big problem of Generals using their influence to get their own relatives (the few who are in the military) out of the military and into civil jobs.

Any officer who gets a chance to join the civil services, or join a private company, doesn`t even think twice before leaving. He jumps ship. Nawaz Sharif`s daughter was married to an Army Captain. Instantly after marraige, he was out of the Army (retired as a Captain) and into the civil services. Nearly every military aide assigned to Prime Ministers and Presidents ends up in civil services. Yet no one from the civil services or private enterprise ever leaves his/her job to join the military. etc. etc.

So the military is one of the worst careers for Pakistani professionals financially, at the moment. Believe me, I am speaking from experience. It is purely a middle and lower-middle class profession now. I regularly receive emails from my military colleagues asking my advice on how to change their careers. Most are living hand to mouth. I make more money than my whole unit combined. I doubt any Chowk interactor would join the military even if the opportunity came up, even though he/she will continue (incorrectly) saying that military officers make a lot of money.

So while there are peons and professors and policemen are suffering in the civilian sectors, their equivalent peons and professors in the military (the 549,900 non- Generals) are suffering even more. A military sepoy would switch jobs with a policeman anyday. A Captain teaching in a military school will switch jobs with a Beaconhouse teacher anyday. An Air Force pilot will change jobs with a PIA pilot anyday (Brigadier level military pilots regularly apply for entry level pilot positions in civilian airlines). All my militry colleagues would switch jobs with me instantly. However, I would not switch jobs with them.

Yet we do see so many Generals who are very well-off. Nearly all the facilities described in this article do exist for Generals. How did that happen and what is the solution?

The solution is to recognize where the problem is first. This is why all the solutions and frustrations presented on this site are useless. People presenting the solutions do not understand the problem.

The, ``good life`` in the military starts at the rank of Major General (not even at the Brigadier rank, financially speaking, except for a few cases). There are about 170 Generals in the Pakistan Army, Navy and PAF combined. While there are around 550,000 active members of the military. The Generals have very high living standards (same as the senior civil servants like Chairman of WAPDA, PIA, PTCL etc.) The Generals also have their futures secured, as they end up as Ambassadors, as Chairman of WAPDA, PIA etc., and are able to utilize the various private companies owned by the military (while the retd. Colonels work as small shopkeepers after retirement).

Those 170 individuals who end up becoming Generals make up for all their, ``sub-standard`` living as Captains and Majors, in their few years stay in the General ranks. They get the plots etc. They have ten or more servants (specially in the Army) Infact, the resources they use the most do not come from civilian budgets. They are the resources that were supposed to go to the Captains and Majors. Go to any military area, and you will see the Maj. Gen living like a king and the Captain and his family living in a small shack.

I used to try to get a room in a military Mess, for a few days of vacation, after spending months in training excercises in the scorching heats of South Punjab, and would find the rooms occupied by the sons, daughters, neices, nephews of Generals, who were visiting from the USA. These relatives were more important than the actual soldiers.

The system under which the Colonels and below are living in pathetic financial conditions and the Generals and above are, ``living it up`` needs to be changed. Since, the moment someone becomes a General, he tries to make up for the low living standards he faced for all his non-General career, at the expense of the junior officers and men.

So what is the solution?

The solution is to cut down the number of General officers from 170 to 60 or so. And to end all military run businesses in the private sector like banks and to stop apponting retired Generals as Chairman PIA etc. All the money that is saved from that, needs to be used to bring the pathetic living standards of the lower ranks upto those of other civil organizations, so that the best young officers and men, do not jump at the first opportunity of leaving the military. All of this would also improve the image of the military.

Personally speaking, I would not advise any young Pakistani with potential to join the military today. It is one of the most underpaid professions in Pakistan. And the odds of becoming a General are less than 1%.

- Cut the number of Generals to 1/3rd their current number
- Increase the salaries of Colonels and below to three times their current levels.

We need a leadership of housewives in Pakistan.

Ras

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